Alert FAQ

How to alert about a case of an athlete that survived a near-sudden death event:

Thank you for choosing to alert us about the case where an athlete suffered a sudden death or survived a life-threatening episode. The information you provide may bring links for the staff of The Registry to further investigate the case with local officials or the family of an athlete. To alert us about a case, please register to become our system’s user. After you register, log in with your created username and password to submit a case. To submit an alert, click on submit an alert on the next page after the log in. Submission of alerts is done via e-mail. In the e-mail field, we ask you to include your geographical location (county and state) and your contact information. We ask that you provide a geographical location and date of the event, the age and the sex of the athlete, highest level of participation achieved and the type of sport the athlete was involved in and provide a brief description of circumstances. Please do not submit “test” cases to verify transmission of information. You will receive an e-mail from The Registry notifying you that the case has been received. If you encounter technical difficulties in the process of submission, please e-mail us.

What types of cases are we interested in?

The National Registry of Sudden Death in Athletes is designed to capture the deaths of males and females up to 40 years of age across the United States that participated in competitive sports. Sometimes the rapid and efficient use of cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), an automated external defibrillator (AED), interventions of emergency medical personnel, hospital treatment or all of the above resuscitates an athlete from a life-threatening event. In addition to cases of sudden deaths in athletes, we are interested in cases of athletes that survived such events (up to 40 years of age). Both the cases of sudden death and survival of a near-sudden death events will be of interest to us if they occur in the present and have occurred in the past (from 01/01/1999 to present).

Is submission of a case over the Internet secure?

Transmission of information over the Internet into the database of the National Registry of Sudden Death in Athletes is secured by InstantSSL certificate. VeriSign is a system currently used for secure online transactions with authentication and encryption.  Transmission of information to The Registry is done via a secure site. The information is encrypted before transmission. The database of all the submitted cases is designed similarly to a virtual data repository where the case information, once submitted, cannot be retrieved by outside users. If you discovered an error in the data you had submitted, please e-mail us (e-mail page opens once the user clicks). In compliance with standards set by HIPAA, the names, addresses or Social Security numbers of athletes that suffered sudden death or survived a near-sudden death episode are not asked for in alerts about the cases.

Will case information be shared with outside parties?

Information on athletes that suffered a sudden death or survived a near-sudden death event obtained via this website may be shared with medical professionals, Medical Examiners and Deputy County Coroners strictly in order to obtain relevant records that would allow the review of a case for inclusion into The Registry. Where appropriate, the staff of The Registry will use required documentation to obtain pertinent medical records according to procedures set by offices that hold such information. After the records are obtained, they will be kept in confidentiality will not be shared with medical professionals, Medical Examiners and Deputy County Coroners, media representatives or be published in a manner that allows identification of an athlete. However, as a part of routine oversight of the research process, the Institutional Review Board of Abbott Northwestern Hospital, Department of Health and Human Services and Food and Drug Administration officials may request inspection of files of any research study. In such cases, appropriate procedures to maintain confidentiality of records will be followed.

What will happen after the case is received?

After we receive an alert about a case reporting a sudden death of an athlete of a survival of a near-sudden death, the information may be used to further pursue the case and be the basis of a contact with local Medical Examiner’s or Deputy Coroner Office or the athlete or the family of the athlete, where appropriate. Because alerts about a case may come from more than one user of the system, it is possible that all information in its entirety or abstracted versions will be used for purposes of further research of a case. We may choose to contact you for more information or to discuss the case, so please do not forget to include your contact information. You will receive an e-mail from one of our staff members following your alert e-mail message which is separate from an e-mail that confirms the submission of information. Periodic reports of the status of the Registry will be posted on the website.

If you have any other questions, please e-mail us.